Who gives a _____ ! You can drop your favorite swear word in there. Go ahead. No one can hear you. When you reach what some call old age, you can throw off the anxiety and phobias and just enjoy life. You’re comfortable in your own skin. At least that’s the theory.

According to a Gallup survey done way back in 2011, happiness follows a U-shaped curve. People’s sense of well-being was highest in childhood and old age. Midlife was a kind of a drag (i.e. low point of the U-shape). Maybe for some, but not everyone.

Anyhew, lately some folks are saying it’s all BS. If your life follows the curve, you filled out the survey. If your life sucks, you threw the questionnaire out without opening it. So once again, the surveys and research may not tell us anything.

It’s often been said that long life is a gift. Not clear who is saying it, but there’s a good chance it’s someone who does not yet have to worry about the body letting them down or worrying about when dementia might set in. By the way, it’s not a comforting thought, but the chances of getting dementia double every five years past the age of sixty-five. People marveled that my mother lived to 106 but they had no idea about the toll it took on her physically and mentally. We liked to think she was grateful for a long life, but maybe not so much when your world shrinks down to just you, alone in an assisted care facility.

We want to approach old age with some grace, don’t we? We would like to do fun things, visit places on our bucket list, enjoy our friends, share the good times with our soulmates, and enjoy these things in reasonably good health. In the end (ooh, I hate the sound of that), contentedness in old age will have much to do with how contented we were before we became old. Cranky, self-centered people are going to hate it. Good-humored people are going appreciate their lives, despite having to pee a lot more often.

Best advice: the hell with the U-curve. Enjoy the life of leisure as best you can. It doesn’t matter how full the glass is, so long as there’s still something in it to enjoy.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. You can also visit his author page here. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is also available on Amazon. But that’s not all. You can also purchase the Best of BoomSpeak on Amazon.

I’ve been a weaver for 36 years. I sell at craft fairs, on Etsy, and to friends and family. It’s a creative outlet that can be as frustrating and tedious as it is rewarding. Much like life! In fact, weaving has taught me much about life, and I share five of those lessons here.

1) Not everyone sees the world the same way.
What is purple to me may be plum or eggplant to you. Beyond the subtleties of color perception, what I make and market as a kitchen towel may become a runner in your home. A bread cloth may become a towel. I learned from weaving that different perspectives and viewpoints are legitimate and deserve respect.

2) Mistakes are inevitable.
Sometimes I thread wrong, which is easy to do when I’m putting over 500 threads through the reed and heddles in a specific order. I learned from weaving that despite my best efforts, I can’t avoid mistakes.

3) Mistakes can be fixed.
There’s always a solution. I can add a heddle to fix a threading error, or rethread. If I’ve noticed an error in the tie-up of the treadles or in the weaving early enough in the project, I can unweave what I’ve woven, re-tie the treadles and start over. If the warp threads keep breaking, I can cut the project from the loom. And that’s okay. I learned from weaving to respond to mistakes by taking a deep breath and looking for a solution.

4) Things don’t always turn out the way you expect.
I can visualize a mix of colors, I can estimate yardage needed to accommodate shrinkage, and the result can be nothing like I thought it would be. This is not always a bad thing – sometimes the surprise is for the better – but when it’s not, I learned from weaving that there is usually someone who thinks my less-than-perfect result is perfect for them.

5) There are many ways to be an artist.
I’ve struggled with what to call myself – crafter, maker, or fiber artist. I hesitate to use the label artist because to me that is someone who paints or draws or sculpts. I’ve come to realize, though, that creating functional fiber art is still art in a world where so much is made in China. I learned from weaving to nurture and celebrate my inner artist.

Lee Stevens weaves at her studio in western North carolina. See her work at bluetreeweaver.etsy.com

It’s the choices—don’t pick up that quarter you see by the curb, don’t bend over the sink when you’re brushing your teeth, don’t put on your pants on unless you’re within arm’s reach of your dresser—that reminds you how a bad back guides what you do. Your decisions accumulate. You put your golf clubs away and, with some pleasure, hire a service to cut your lawn. You keep walking on the treadmill, lifting weights, and doing exercises to strengthen your back, but you worry that these activities are making matters worse. You try to find a comfortable position to sleep with little success and often hurt yourself as you work your way out of bed. You sit in only two places in your house to keep your back from tightening and one of those is hard for you to get in and out.

You tried ointments and muscles relaxers. You live on aspirin and Advil. You do not enjoy the pain. You worry that a time will come when the pain will be more than you can handle, like when you were travelling and you had to spend several of your vacations days nursing your back in your hotel room, or like when you fell to the floor in a class you were teaching as you bent over to help a student.

Some days are better than others, and on the better days, you let yourself become hopeful. Soon, though, the pain returns, wiping away the hope you had. Your wife is sympathetic, but her patience, like yours, must surely be running out. You believe you should go to the doctor. Perhaps just a massage or physical therapy would be all it would take. Perhaps X-rays might point to something easy to fix. Perhaps you’ll call, but you remain afraid of what might be found, of what might be ahead. You do not have much faith in doctors, particularly when it comes to something like back pain. You’ve heard horror stories. Your wife encourages you to make an appointment. You know she is right. You reach for the bottle of aspirin. It doesn’t feel too badly today. You decide you can wait until tomorrow to call.

Ronald Pellas lives in Lafayette, LA

Really. Dog names. The news today included a report on what names are popular with baby boomers when it comes to naming their pets. Seriously. It was in the news.

The report noted that Millennials were keen to give their pets human names such as Luna or Max. Sure enough, if you do a search for the current popular dog names of 2022, they skew towards actual people names. Luna was number one, followed by Bella, Charlie, Max, Daisy, Lucy, Cooper, Bailey, Milo, Coco, Lily, Zoe, Lola, Buddy, Sadie, Stella, Bear, Rocky, Molly, Teddy, Maggie, Penny, Duke and Leo.

Boomers, on the other hand, relied on popular culture sources such as comics, film and music.

The source of this startling news? Dog name trend reports (whatever those are) and anecdotal evidence. And there it is. The old anecdotal evidence trope. You might as well say you’re making this crap up, but okay, let’s have it. It’s a slow news day.

1. Snoopy – Really. The cartoon dog has a special place in boomers’ hearts (according to anecdotes).

2. Maggie – They give the Rod Stewart song credit for this one.

3. Dolly – Dolly Pawton. Need we say more.

4. Charlie – Because JFK had a terrier by that name.

5. Lassie – Timmy fell in the well and well, what else do you need to know?

6. Toto – Yellow brick road says it all.

7. Buddy – Because he/she truly is your best friend.

8. Major – Presidents Biden and Franklin D. Roosevelt had German Shepherds with this name.

9. Benji – The movie scores again.

10. Bear – Because your dog looks like a bear?

11. Chewy – Either the Star Wars influence or the dog is really mouthy.

12. Lady – Go back to 1955 for the Disney movie influence or just blame it on the Tramp.

13. Cujo – Who turns to Stephen King for dog name inspiration?

14. Fido – Sheesh! Does any self-respecting boomer call their dog Fido? According to anecdotal evidence, yes!

I hope this information has been useful to you, or at least entertaining. I know that I feel better informed now. At least anecdotally.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. You can also visit his author page here. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is also available on Amazon. But that’s not all. You can also purchase the Best of BoomSpeak on Amazon.

 

 

A guy I play golf with took it upon himself to share his thoughts about my personality.

He said I seemed intelligent and independent, but I was aloof and didn’t show enough interest in other people. I need to ask more questions, he said, if I want people to like me. I just nodded.

Hmmm, so not interested in your thoughts on this subject.

For the record, I’ve never been a social animal, just a few close friends, but people seem to like me well enough … as in not universally despised. That’s a distinction I’m rather proud of.

My buddy is extroverted, randomly chats up people on the golf course and asks a million questions, some kind of personal, and although I find it annoying, it’s not a deal-breaker. As an introvert, I try to avoid the talkers, but somehow we started playing together regularly. He’s a decent fellow, and I don’t want to work all that hard to find someone new.

I actually did play with someone new this week and thought, what the hell? Ask a question. The problem is questions lead to answers, and if you get a talker, sometimes those answers are more than you bargained for. Then there’s always the possibility of sliding down that slippery slope to conversation.

Seems like I prefer exercise without conversation. I suppose that’s why I’m drawn to swimming and long walks alone.

Anyway, my buddy and I are supposed to play again next week, and I’m hoping he’ll have moved onto the next person to fix. I’m not going to apologize for being an introvert. As always, I try to be a pleasant and encouraging partner. No temper tantrums. A laugh, a smile, a thumbs up. Great putt! Wow, you smoked that drive!

Don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy people. Let’s get a beer afterward, and you can talk all you want.

I don’t know why he felt compelled to share all that, but in the end, I’m glad he did. In a strange way, it was validating. As I reflected on his comments, I’d say he wasn’t far off on my personality assessment. The part he got wrong was thinking I should do something to change it.

Feeling comfortable in your old flawed skin is one of the great pleasures of aging.

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.

 

One morning, I yawned and heard a distinct pop in my right jaw. Yikes? Is my head falling off? My face frozen and contorted, I had dislocated my jaw! I began to panic.

I wanted to run from our bedroom, elbows flailing, as I grasped my face to keep my head in place. (Think Edvard Munsch’s The Scream.) I needed a doctor, but I had never heard of an ear, nose, throat and jaw doctor. Unable to move my unhinged mouth, I couldn’t communicate to my wife who was sleeping next to me. If I were to reach out and shake her awake, there was no telling how she’d react when she saw me. A jury would call it self-defense.

I grabbed my jaw and began to wiggle and shift it slowly and gently, as I tried to locate the groove. This had always worked with a bicycle chain and whenever my garage door slipped off its tracks. After some painful shimmying of my head parts, I managed to position my jaw back into place.

For three days, I hid my condition from my wife while I consulted Dr. Google. Several times a day I yawned too widely and knocked my jaw out again. With each incident, I trotted quickly from the living room to the bathroom to keep my hideous disintegration from my wife. She thought I had developed a bladder condition. Behind the locked bathroom door, I would gaze at my misshapen face in the mirror, grab hold, and then eventually slot everything back in place like giant Lego pieces.

It didn’t take long to learn I had TMD–temporomandibular joint dysfunction–a condition that can hit people of any age, though I read that most people affected are under forty. I announced to my wife that I had a “young person’s disorder.” She smirked. I consulted my GP, and he referred me to a dentist who specialized in my condition.

The dentist told me that if it got any worse, I would need complicated oral surgery. After several visits, x-rays, and measurements, I was finally fitted with a custom-made retainer which I am supposed to wear at night for the rest of my life. I have been able to keep my head in place and I have had fewer episodes of detachment. At least in the physical sense.

On the plus side, my wife says I look fourteen.

Michael Riordan has taught in the U.S., Australia, Singapore, and China, where he was professor of writing and film. He was co-founder and director of Singapore-based Creative Action Now, an English language school. His work can be found in Short Edition, Consequence, Epoch Press, Front Range Review, Tether’s End, and elsewhere.